Monday, August 31, 2015

[Oooh! More hot contemporary erotica from Zenobia! And it's on sale now for 99 cents! ~Lisabet]

She
offers satisfaction above and beyond what is requested.

Lexie's
job as a maid at a five-star hotel doesn't normally include the
unique and risqué form of room service that rich guest Mr. Malena
has requested, nor the generous tip he's offered. Submission and
exhibition and a ménage. Lexie can't resist. What should have been a
one-time thing turns into an introduction into the sensual world of
customer satisfaction. This is one workplace encounter that could get
her fired...or will it?

NOTE:
Title previously published as Wine Service (Professional Courtesy 1).

Excerpt

Lexie
backed up a step.

“Now,
now. Don’t be frightened. Nothing untoward. I promise.”

She
snorted. “What exactly is your definition of untoward? I just rode
a bottle for your wanking pleasure.”

“That’s
all part of wine service. As is what comes next.”

“Next?”

“I
didn’t bring it up last night because of how skittish you were, but
there is more to it than stuffing that beautiful pussy of yours with
a five-hundred-dollar bottle of Chardonnay.”

“Five
hun—” She choked on the word. She’d been riding a bottle of
Chardonnay that cost five hundred dollars. True, she knew nothing
about wines or why one cost more than another—beyond age—but
hadn’t known a single bottle could cost five hundred dollars.

“Yes.
In honor of you and your first night. I thought it appropriate a
five-hundred-dollar woman should ride a five-hundred-dollar bottle.”
He wiggled his eyebrows. “Does it get you hot to think about it?”

“You’re
insane.” She laughed. “You’re also joking.”

“I’m
not. Call Franceska if you don’t believe me.” He gestured to the
phone.

She
looked at the bottle and then at him. “Five hundred dollars?”

“Yes.”

“Wow.”
She’d never had anything that pricey between her legs. Her most
expensive toy had barely broken the two hundred mark, and here she’d
used a five-hundred-dollar bottle of Chardonnay to get off. “So
what else is there? Sex, right?”

“If
you want, but not what I had in mind right this instance.” He
chuckled. “I’m not as spry as I used to be. I need a little more
time to regain my stamina.”

“You
look plenty spry to me.” She eyed his semi-erect dick. It hadn’t
gone limp after he came. A few well-placed licks would probably have
it hard again in an instant.

“Bless
you, dear girl. You are good for my ego.” He lifted her hand to his
lips and kissed the back. “Now then. After riding the bottle comes
drinking the wine.”

“I’m
on the clock.”

“Not
you. Me. And a little shouldn’t hurt your performance.” He gazed
into her eyes. “Unless you’re a lightweight.”

“No,
but I don’t want someone to smell alcohol on my breath either.”

“True.
True. But you won’t be drinking.”

“So
why do you need me?”

He
kissed her hand again and ran his tongue up to her wrist. “You’re
my glass.”

Zenobia
Renquist is the alter-ego of D. Renee Bagby. Call her Zen or Renee,
she answers to both. Air Force brat turned Air Force wife, she was
born in Europe, has lived in Japan and in several states of the US,
including Virginia, Florida, North Carolina, Texas, California,
Maryland and Hawaii.

She
moved a lot in her younger years and remembers all too well being the
new kid in fish-out-of-water situations. But those experiences only
made her better able to adapt, as well they gave her a love of
travel, preferring road trips over flying.

Turning
her favorite pastime into her career, Renee loves to build worlds and
torture her characters for the enjoyment of her readers. She can’t
fill everyday with writing alone, and also enjoys watching anime,
reading manga, crocheting, knitting (yarn and mail), and binging
shows on Netflix. She’s a Whovian (David Tennant for the win!), a
trekkie (DS9 because Odo rocked), and a fan of pretty much every
Marvel live action movie and DCU animated movie.

She
has a wacky imagination and tends to write all over the place. In
order to keep up, she only asks one thing—Leave Your Reality
Behind to Discover Different and Unique Romance & Erotica.

Jimmy
comes around to my side of the desk. “I’m so sorry. God, Stella,
it must have been horrible.” He gives me a brotherly hug.

His
strength feels wonderful. I relax a little and let him comfort me. He
strokes my hair back from my face, murmuring nonsense into my ear.
“Poor girl, I’m so glad that you came to me. I’m sorry to be
such a dolt. If there’s anything I can do...” Nothing has
changed, but for a moment it seems as though the weight of the world
has been lifted from my shoulders.

Then
I notice two things. First, his arm is around me and his fingers are
brushing against the side of my breast. It’s casual, almost
unconscious, but my nipples contract and throb in response. Second,
there’s a hard protrusion pressed against my thigh, conflicting
with the supposedly innocent nature of this embrace.

I’m
sorely tempted to give in and accept more intimate comfort, but I
have a feeling that would be a mistake, at least right now. Gently, I
push him away, glancing down at his tented trousers as I do so. A
blush creeps over his blunt features.

“Thanks
for your support, Jimmy. The main thing that you can do for me is to
keep me out of this as much as possible. Keep it quiet. If Joey from
the Peacock found out, he might not be too crazy about having me work
there.”

“There’ll
be an investigation. There might be a trial. Will you testify?”

“If
I have to. But I hope that it won’t be necessary.”

“I’ll
do what I can, Stella.” He notes my limp as I stand up to leave,
and grabs my hand. “Hey, are you hurt?”

“I’ll
be okay, Jimmy. Hazards of the profession.” He doesn’t let go of
my hand, and I see that his erection has not subsided. I melt a bit
at the sight. “Thanks for everything.”

“Thank
you, for coming out about this. You’ve made things a lot easier for
us.”

“Maybe
we could get together some night, for dinner, or something? Catch up?
Or talk about old times? I feel bad that we haven’t kept in closer
touch.”

I
pull my hand away. Simultaneously, I lean over and kiss him lightly
on the cheek. “Maybe. You could always come by the Peacock and
catch my show.” He blushes again, mottled crimson. “Or maybe I
can arrange a special performance.”

Saturday, August 29, 2015

My
name sounds sweet, doesn’t it? Kayleigh Sky. Do you see me skipping
through fields of wildflowers and dancing under puffy white clouds?

I
need to take out an advisory. CheckwithyourdoctorbeforestartingthisoranyofKayleigh’sbooks!Proceedatyourownrisk!

That
last statement I kind of do advise. I put it point blank on my author
bio, my Facebook page, my twitter profile, and my website that I
Write Dark Intense Stories. What part of that statement makes it
sound like I write fluffy little love stories? None, right? So if
people pick up my book and still come out scared to death of the
world they’d just inhabited, what does that say about my level of
darkness? Darker than dark? Darkness squared?

Okay.
Just so we’re on the same page here. I. Am. Dark. In high school, I
was the kid who’d pick Fahrenheit451 over
CatcherintheRye,
or ASeparatePeace over PrideandPrejudice. Not that there wasn’t
lovely angst in all four books, but the first of each pair offered a
world just like our own, except… not. I do that in Backbone.
It’s a future world but still ours. Are you scared of your world?
Probably not. Hopefully not really scared. Maybe a little
uneasy. Imagine you’re walking down a busy street in a familiar
city or town. You have errands, a job to get to, a friend to meet for
coffee. You know this place. It’s broad daylight. Pedestrians
surround you. A cop is parked on the street, maybe standing on the
sidewalk, talking to a shop owner. The sky is clear. All is well in
the world. Then you turn the corner and… it’s all the same. Shops
and cafes and people. But there’s something slightly off. You slow
and people flow around you. They look back as they move on. You see
the knowing looks in their eyes. You can’t see what the difference
is. Maybe the sides of the buildings lean imperceptibly. Or maybe the
doors are a little too narrow, the parking meters slightly out of
alignment, the colors a little dull or a little too bright. The
changes are minuscule, but you can sense them. A feeling of terror
crawls along your skin. The eyes watching you brighten in amusement.
You whirl around and race back to the other street where everything
was right and good just a moment ago. You breathe in incredible
relief to be back in your world again.

Do
you like that sensation of instability? Of being immersed in
something that isn’t what you thought it was? Then I’m looking
for you, my kindred spirits. I’m on a search for my tribe. The
dwellers in the dark. I wrote a post for my own blog recently called
WhoWantsToBraveTheDarkwithMe?
I write stories that distress people. I am grateful that I can pull
people so deeply into a story that they emerge back into the real
world with relief. That means that they have felt. Maybe not what
they wanted to feel. Maybe they wanted a few more spoonfuls of sugar
to go with their very dark coffee, but as the title to this post
clearly states, I am not Mary fucking Poppins. We all don’t want
the same things. I get that. But I also know that I’m not the only
dark soul out there. Comeout,comeout,whereveryouare.
You are the ones who can bear the pain and the fear of a character’s
dark journey because the experience of his salvation is so blessedly
joyful. An exquisite pain! You, my fellow tribe members, celebrate
the power of love to open the iron gates between heaven and hell.

Do
I write romance? Yes, I do. I believe that love saves and redeems.
That’s the kind of love I write about. I will take you to a world
where salvation is always in doubt because that’s where my guys
live. But I also write Happy Ever Afters! The guy always gets the guy
and all he ever dreamed of. All he was afraid to dream of. All he
never had the courage to believe in. The dark is the place where the
heart purges itself of all but the essence of truth. What do you
really want? When you turn that corner onto a world you never
imagined, what is the thing you most long to hold onto? Will you
fight for it? Will you rejoice that the struggle was worth the prize?
Then welcome to my world… I’ve been looking for you. :)

Blurb

Struggling to survive in a deadly new world, Brey Jamieson soon
discovers that the man who holds his heart might not be willing to set
it free.

A
universal vaccine eradicates all known viruses from the human
population, but in the wake of this miracle, a deadly new virus
suddenly surfaces. As the death toll rises, people riot in panic and
civilization collapses.

Brey Jamieson, a convicted felon, is suddenly
set loose in this violent new world. Desperate to reunite with his
family, he sets out on a journey across the country but is captured
by a brutal man who plans to sell him into slavery.

Hank Kresnak is a
cop in the new world. It is his job to preserve the law. But when he
sees Brey, his belief in everything he has built his new life on
begins to crumble. Memories of a dark and terrible time reawaken. He
was the cop who arrested Brey, and with one look into Brey’s
eyes, he knew his life would never be the same. He was a married man
with two daughters, but he couldn’t
forget a man he barely even knew. Now his wife and daughters are
gone, and he must struggle to save the man of his dreams from a
nightmare fate.

Excerpt

The
man was bent over inside the gas station. Naked. Tied down.

Fuck.
A slave.

Hank
gave a tug on Trixie’s reins and pushed on through scrubby brown
hills. The sky was a high, flat blue and a dry, astringent smell
filled the air. Hank breathed deeply, inhaling a faint tickle of
dust. Below was a spit of a town—just a gas station and an unused
diner.

All
familiar.

His
life now. But, fuck, he didn’t want to see this. He was a cop, for
godsakes. He was supposed to break up fights and put bad guys away.
In his old life, he knew the homeless man who rummaged in the
alleyway behind the Thai Palace by name. He guarded a social worker
named Joy who came to take a five-year-old in pink barrettes out of a
crack house where her daddy knifed her mommy to death for forgetting
to put ice in his Pepsi. He dodged a TV somebody tried to drop on his
head out of a fifth floor window. He took complaints and made
reports. He hauled in pimps, drug dealers and drunk and disorderlies.
He went after bad guys.

Guys
like Thom—whobouncedandwobbledinthetoo-hotsun.Animated.Afriendlysalesman.

Laughter
floated in the air.

Christ,
he wanted to go get that naked man. Wanted to grab him and run off
with him.

Save
him.

Like
he couldn’t save anybody else.

He
wanted his old life back. The life with the dance recitals, soccer,
movies with Beth, game night with the girls, work, bills.

He
liked that life. It was a good life.

Then
a company called Bio-Gen Tech came out with a vaccine called Pox Vac
and for only pennies a shot, almost all viruses—flu,colds,HIV—disappeared. Conspiracy
theorists claimed that Pox Vac was really nanotechnology funded by
corporations to control the purchasing habits of consumers. To them,
that was the only way Pox Vac could make sense. Otherwise, it was
un-American. There was no profit in cures. Hank scoffed at that. The
girls got their shots. Beth too, but he didn’t. Lazy, he guessed.

It
didn’t matter. Life went on—piano lessons, school plays, a trip
to the Grand Canyon, work.

ThenBeth’saffair.

He
didn’t like to think about that, but it was a part of the end—like
summer’s last barbecues and early twilights.

Then
people began to die.

They
called the new virus Eve. By spring, shell-shocked survivors
scattered out of almost-empty cities. Now, three years later, he
lived in a half-dead world with people like Thom Donnell, the
bulbous, waddling former insurance salesman, because that’s what
Thom was before—a salesman. Still a salesman. Gesticulating avidly
to his customers between slaps to the naked man’s ass.

It
made Hank’s blood boil.

*
* *

Brey
didn’t know where he was anymore. He thought he used to know. But
now he wasn’t sure. His face scrunched up, but he didn’t feel it.
All he felt was that bar under his belly, and he wanted to get away
from it, but he couldn’t. His position confused him. He didn’t
like it. He couldn’t get a good breath in, and his legs shook. He
was hot, too.

Lemonade,
he thought. That would be good. Under the veranda by the pool. A ball
game on TV.

“Giantsan’ Dodgers.”

“No
Dodgers.”

He
didn’t like that voice.

Metal
clanked.

Fuck,
that bar hurt.

Sweat
stung his eyes, and he blinked grit away. There was concrete beneath
him. A concrete floor. Oil stains. Oh yeah. A garage.

His
legs shook again. Fuck. Fuck. “I have to go!”

Nobody
looked at him, though. His voice wouldn’t come out. Only a raspy
breath that he couldn’t quite catch. Noise rang in his
ears—booming,raucous,shrill.

Fuck!

He
struggled, metal bit into his wrists, and the pressure on his belly
made his head swim. He was tired. Too tired for this. He didn’t
want to do it anymore. Shame flooded him like hot water—itching,
burning and stinging. Surreal. Out of nowhere. His memories of
getting here swirled with images of swimming pools, orange and yellow
leaves, a cell with bars, a blue strobe light, bare dry hills and a
fat man smiling brightly.

Thom.

He
couldn’t remember coming here, undressing or bending over the bar.
Panic fluttered inside him, and he began to pant again. Please God,
please. I don’t want this. I don’t. But he wasn’t really sure
of that anymore.

“Stop!”

His
breath rasped, and that laugh came again. High-pitched. Shrill.
“Wakey-wakey.”

He
thrashed. No!

One
of the men grabbed onto him and slammed him against the bar. Pain
burst inside, and his thoughts scattered again. He tried to grab on.
Imagined a pool, lemonade, Goldy chasing tennis balls.

Thursday, August 27, 2015

[I’ve
got a very special sneak peek today, from my good friend Spencer
Dryden’s new release, just out from Fireborn Publishing. I know
you’ll love this romantic fantasy novella. In addition to
previewing the book, I’m giving you a early peek at the great prize
he’s giving away in his blog tour next week! ~Lisabet]

Blurb

After
he rescues a mermaid from a sea monster, Max Weiss falls into a world
of pirate treasure, dolphin whisperers, murderous mobsters and a
forbidden love.

Troubles
multiply in the already-troubled life of Max Weiss after he rescues a
mermaid from the clutches of a sea monster. Drawn by the allure of
the enchanting mermaid, Azzaria, Max agrees to help her find her lost
mermaid sister. Max is pulled into a world of missing drug money,
pirate treasure, murderous mobsters, dolphin whisperers and a
forbidden love.

Excerpt

Their
bellies full of fish and rum, Max followed her in the skiff to one of
the many little islets dotting the Matanzas River. He turned the
skiff sideways to the shore and dropped an anchor on each end. They
lay in the warm shallow water; direct sight lines to the river were
blocked by the boat. She played with his hair as they talked. They
lay side by side almost spooning, his one arm around her shoulder
supporting her, his other hand tracing her face. Small talk finally
gave way to the challenge she set before him.

"Azzaria,
how do I go about finding your sister?"

"The
dolphins say she is nearby, Max Weiss. She is a landwalker now, with
no memory of me or the sea. You must search for her and bring her to
me so I can whisper memories to her. When she slips back into her
tail, she will remember all."

Max
nodded. "What's her name? That might be a start."

"I
don't know her landwalker name. Her mermaid name is Bekkaul."

"Bekkaul,"
he said, not quite able to match the smoothness of Azzaria's voice.
"That's a beautiful name, just like yours. If I shout out her
name everywhere I go, will she know it?"

"No.
But if you can get close enough and whisper, it might sound
familiar."

Max
flashed an impish grin. "That'll probably get my face slapped."

Azzaria
took his hand and gently nibbled his fingertips while staring deeply
into his eyes. "Max Weiss, you are a powerful warrior and a
seductive man. A mermaid would melt to hear you whisper her mermaid
name."

Max
snickered. "You should tell that to the women who think I'm a
worthless slug."

She
bit harder on his fingers. "Max Weiss, the daughters of Eve do
not know the hearts of men."